A diffusion type thermal transfer image forming method, an image forming method using electronic photography and an image forming method, so-called an ablation method, have been known. In the ablation image forming method, a recording element having a colorant layer is imagewise irradiated by condensed energy of light such as laser light to deform by diffusion, or remove by scattering, burning or evaporating a part of the colorant layer to form an image. Thus formed image is formed an unevenness on the surface of the recorded sheet since the image is formed by imagewise transferring or remaining of a layer of an ink or toner on a recording sheet. As a result of that, the image is easily damaged when the image is scratched by a nail or a sharp metal piece.
A method using a laminating element of a transferring foil has been known to protect such the image. In the case of the laminate element composed of a support and a heat-sensitive or pressure-sensitive resin layer, which is become adhesive by heat or pressure, the resin layer is laminated on the image surface together with the support, and in the case of the transferring foil, only the resin layer is transferred on the image surface and the support of the foil is peeled off after transferring.
However, formation a image protective layer having a sufficient durability and quality becomes to be difficult accompanied with raising in the precision of the image since the adhesion of the protective rain layer is difficultly adhered to the surface of the colorant layer and to the concave portion of the image. Furthermore, usually used laminating element and the transferring foil are insufficient in the slipping ability in an image forming apparatus and tend to be frequently jammed.